A Class Blog for the English 9A Class At Berwick Academy
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Body Paragraphs
This looks like a good place for you body paragraphs--I can't wait to read them.
Best,
AK
11 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Eliza 1st Paragraph: Toby’s desperate need for love and attention drives his misbehavior but he is able to understand where he, personally is lacking. He shows his need inadvertently by intentional disobedience. “I knew he wouldn’t let this drop that he would keep at it until he caught me. I got scared” (77). Toby is frightened by the possibility of discipline, he is realizing how much he has missed out on real, pure childhood. Every childhood has bumps in the road, but nothing like the hills in Toby’s. Rosemary’s lack of attention to Toby blinds her to who the latter really is. Rosemary wants the best for her son, but sometimes she only see’s not him, but what she wishes him to be. When he clearly is the responsible party for the one curse word in the bathroom, she counters this with the might of a defensive parent. “He doesn’t lie to me,” my mother said. The principle was fidgeting. He seemed obviously ready to bolt. ‘Well,’ he said ‘there is obviously some kind of confusion here’ (82) Confusion is dead point on; Rosemary is forced into the parent shoes and is shocked by the chance that her boy, who does NOT lie, could or would do this. Toby internally justifies his lying, because his mother, the prominent figure in his life, believes him. His lack of self definition forces him to stand in her shadow and her shoes and believe it himself. Toby’s own mother cannot hear his continuous, hopeless cry out for a real mother who sees him as the boy he really is. 2nd Paragraph: Deep inside Toby is not a bad kid, he was born into an uncontrollable situation in which he was dealt nasty cards. This does not mean that he cannot turn it around and be great, he just hasn’t found the right outlet yet. He is scared to misbehave and tries desperately to pull the justification he needs from Taylor and Silver. “The silence made me uncomfortable and in my discomfort I grinner at Silver, but Silver did not grin back” (47). Toby see’s no positive force in his life. The only positive repercussions he sees are from those Silver and Taylor exude when a behavioral sin is preformed. The Terry’s harden criminal-ship starts to take a lasting effect of Toby. It first starts with petty crimes, like egging and escalates further, to window breaking. “…the interest of the police in what we’d done elated us. We became important cocksure, insane in our arrogance” (61). The unintentional encouragement of the police furthers their actions. A stop needs to come to this behavior. A stop should come in the forms of boundaries from Rosemary to finally get Toby back on the road and steer him in the right direction.
Tobias Wolff uses cars to symbolize freedom in Toby’s life. Toby is in the car for most of his life traveling away from his mom’s problems, but he doesn’t have the freedom to get into a car and go where he wants to go. Because of Toby’s lack of freedom from his mother, Dwight, and the town of Chinook; Toby craves freedom more than ever. After Skippers car is destroyed by the sand storm, sitting inside, Toby almost believes he is moving. “If I didn’t look too hard I could almost believe I was moving”(125). Believing that he is moving shows how much Toby wants more freedom. Once high school starts, Toby can’t wait anymore; he sneaks out of the house at night and teaches himself to drive. He ‘steals’ the freedom he has been deprived of all his life. “I took the car to a stretch of road halfway to Marblemount where I could get it up to a hundred miles an hour…Someday, I thought, I would just keep going”(174). He wants to keep going – away from his problems, away to a new life with more opportunities and freedom. What Toby doesn’t realize is that with freedom comes responsibility. Toby lies by portrays himself as a well of boy living a perfect life to girls that he writes letters to, he also remodels cars in his mind as a way to express how much he wants to transform his life. Every afternoon when he walks his paper route in Chinook, Toby remodels the cars that he passes in his mind, manipulating their original composure into new styles of expensive models. He adds on all of the bells and whistles that he wishes the cars would have, or symbolically, he wishes his life could have. “Thunderbirds had been out for only a year now…One look was enough to see that he had everything we were not”(45-46). In essence, Toby is trying to do the same thing to his life. He wants to remodel it, and make it in to something he isn’t. Another way Toby tries to transform himself is by lying. When he writes to his pen pal Alice, he tells her he lives on a ranch. “I represented myself to her as the owner of a palomino horse…on my father’s ranch the Lazy B”(13). He wants her to imagine him differently that he really is, and in doing this he hopes that it will change the way his life really is. Toby also writes letters to Annette from the Mickey Mouse Club and tells her that he is an accomplished fisherman. “Cap’n Wolff, now owned a fleet of fishing boats. I was first mate, myself, and a pretty fair hand at reeling in the big ones”(44). By lying to Annette and Alice, he feels better about himself and while writing the letters he can believe that they are true. He gets sucked into the fantasy of his life, and what his life could be.
Maddy Keefe Body Paragraph Toby continuously lies about who he is because his mother encourages him to lie. Toby lies frequently and acknowledges that it is wrong, but is unable to change because he never learned how to tell the truth. “The first thing I wanted to do was change my name”(8). Rosemary lets Toby do whatever he wants, even change his name, but by doing this she is encouraging him to keep lying about himself. He frequently tries on different personalities. This pushes him farther and farther away from his true self. He becomes unable to differentiate between the truth and his lies. Rosemary is also unable to tell if he is lying or not. ‘“If he says he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it,’ my mother said. ‘He doesn’t lie’” (79). Because Rosemary believes Toby’s lies, she ends up encouraging him to lie. She also encourages him when she tells lies. She never taught him to tell the truth. With only bad examples from Rosemary, Toby isn’t able to be truthful about himself.
Toby’s friend Arthur encourages him to lie. They always tell each other stories, but it turns into a competition and both of them try to have to most interesting story. “But we did not feel as if anything we said was a lie. We both believed that the real lie was told by our present unworthy circumstances” (158). Because they tell so many stories, they end up believing their lies. They think they are living in a fantasy. Once they are brought back to reality, they don’t want to believe it. Toby likes his fantasy he creates with Arthur, but does not like being seen with him. “His uniform was baggy and unadorned, his manner supercilious. He stood at the edges of the events and made sarcastic remarks. He didn’t look like a serious Scout, I did” (160). Because Toby wants people to like him, he lies about Arthur. Instead of making a real connection with him, Toby pretends to be his friend and then lies about it. Even though Arthur is not telling Toby to lie, Toby’s insecurity about having a friend makes him lie. Toby and Arthur don’t have a strong bond together which allows Toby to lie.
The opposition to Dwight’s personality and actions induce a positive scar on Toby. Living with Dwight made Toby realize that he doesn’t want to be like him when he grows up. Thus, teaching him a lot of things to “All of Dwight’s complaints against me had the aim of giving me a definition of myself. They succeeded, but not in the way he wished. I defined my self by the opposition to him” (134). For all of Toby’s life, he’s been a lost boy, and moving in with Dwight has pushed him to find himself. Although Dwight is threatening, dangerous and doesn’t treat Toby with respect, he is a powerful influence to Toby because he is showing him what not to be like. Dwight’s demanding personality makes Toby want to change. “You’re in for a change, mister. You got that? You’re in for a whole nother ball game.” ( 91). Change and transformation has been Toby and Rosemary’s goal throughout the whole book and Dwight’s personality is what will contribute to this change. The “Whole New Deal” doesn’t stand for Toby moving in with Dwight, it represents that Toby is changing. In particular, Dwight’s apathy towards Toby leads Toby to gain intellectual thoughts and be a more independent person. “Once it got boring, I went for walks along the road just far enough so I could see the Tavern (134).” During those long walks, Toby’s mind probably reached places you could never imagine. His loneliness caused his mind to open up and capture new thoughts, ideas and experiments. Throughout the whole book, we talk about Toby being a lonely, lost boy. Though he is, all of his free time and less stress has caused him to become more mature, deep and intellectual in thought. “Now that I had grounds for guilt, I could no longer feel it (Now that I had grounds for guilt, I could no longer feel it (134).” What may lead Toby to success, is watching Dwight and Rosemary’s poor choices. While they’re making those choices, Toby is watching and taking notes in his head. Toby knows that he has gotten stronger since they moved from Florida, and that he is getting closer and closer to crossing the continental divide.
Andrew Waterhouse Toby commits his shenanigans because of his anger at the people who hurt him and his mother and how he hasn’t a proper father figure. Dwight hurts Toby and is mean to his mother and this triggers him to want to disobey, “I was ready to do anything to get clear of Dwight. I even thought of killing him, shooting him down some night while he was picking on my mother,” (133). Almost immediately after Rosemary meets Dwight, Toby vandalizes a school bathroom and gets in massive amounts of trouble for it, “’He doesn’t lie to me’ my mother said. The principal was fidgeting. He seemed about ready to bolt,” (82).Toby‘s shenanigans make Rosemary attracted to bad men and the bad men are driving force behind Toby’s mischief. If Rosemary looked for quality in her relationships instead of finding easy relationships quickly, Toby would behave better and Rosemary would have a better life. Rosemary loves Toby to the extent of where all of her actions are attempting to benefit him, including her relationships with men to find make Toby happy and to find him a father figure to behave. After an awful date Rosemary went on with Gil, Toby sees his mother’s pain when she comes home late, “She was crying softly. ‘Mom?’ I said… She looked at me, tried to say something, shook her head,” (55). Rosemary marries Dwight, a sadist who abuses Toby (verbally and physically) and tries to do the same to Rosemary, because she acknowledges her incapability of disciplining Toby and discovers he needs discipline in his life, “She’d never been able to spank me. The few times she tried I came away laughing,” (60). Rosemary knows that Toby needs discipline, so she uses Dwight, someone she doesn’t love, to help Toby, someone she does. Even though sometimes it appears that Rosemary’s actions are making things worse for Toby, She’s always thinking for him and puts her love life out of the picture for him.
The chapter title “Uncool” is describing Dwight just as much as Toby and his constant behavior show how uncool he is. He doesn’t know how best to behave in front of Toby’s mother, probably because he hasn’t had social contact in a while, making him awkward around others. He’s uncool in this case because he makes such a huge effort to court Toby’s mother, even though he might not need to. “He knew…that even being in her presence was a piece of luck that depended on his displaying at every moment deference, bounce, optimism, and all manner of good cheer” (63). Therefore Dwight knows that Rosemary probably doesn’t love him, but he tries anyway, and that is one feature that makes him uncool. Dwight is also a sore loser. He’s uncool because he can’t deal with the fact of his own failures, especially when Rosemary wins the rifle competitions. “Dwight pulled away fast and drove straight back to the house, where he clomped down the hall to his room and closed the door behind him” (74). These quotes show that Dwight doesn’t have good people skills, which makes uncool. Both of these quotes are also clear foreshadowing of Dwight’s future behavior, such as when Dwight sells Toby’s rifle to pay for the dog, Champion. Since Dwight lost the competition using Toby’s rifle, he sold it out of poor sportsmanship. As such he becomes uncool in the future, both in the reader’s eyes and the other character’s eyes.
2nd Paragraph:
Dwight is the source of decay is the family, and all the family’s problems come from him. Toby hates him so much that he thinks about, even plans on running away. “My idea was to steal enough to run away. I was ready to do anything to get clear of Dwight” (133). Toby’s life is made miserable by Dwight, and he’s so desperate to be rid of Dwight that he’ll even leave his mother. He also hates Dwight so much that he’s even ready to kill Dwight. “Sometimes I took the Winchester down when I heard him start on my mother…I wanted to shoot him just to quiet him down” (133). Dwight makes Toby miserable, causing a large problem in the family. Norma’s life is also ruined by Dwight. She marries Kenneth, who she hates, just to get away from Chinook, or more specifically, Dwight. “Norma called up and said she’d decided to marry Kenneth. She refused to explain her decision, but…we could all see that Norma didn’t love Kenneth. …she (Norma) was pale and angular, all her lazy lushness gone. Her green eyes blazed in the starkness of her face. She had taking up smoking-out on the little patio where Kenneth wouldn’t smell it when he got home” (147, 151, & 152). Even though Norma doesn’t love Kenneth and her becomes miserable with him; she still thinks that it would be better than living near Dwight. Toby and Norma’s unhappiness stems from Dwight, who’s cruel and violent character makes the whole family unhappy.
In This Boy’s Life, Dwight and Rosemary’s relationship is represented by guns and excuses. When Rosemary and Toby go to Dwight’s for Thanksgiving, they enter a shooting competition. Dwight is dismayed when Rosemary wins and he feels slighted that he lost horribly. Dwight continually feels slighted by everything and anything when it doesn’t go his way. For instance, Dwight is so loath to lose, that he makes up excuses as to why he has lost. When he loses the gun competition, he tells Toby that his gun is, “‘a menace. You should get rid of it. It shoots wild… The bore is probably rusted out’” (72). These excuses are lame and don’t hold any claim to reality. Rosemary keeps trying to make the relationship with Dwight work and her reasons change as quickly as Dwight’s guns. In a seemingly last attempt to make their marriage work, Dwight and Rosemary go on a hunting trip. “Dwight talked my mother into going along. They were supposed to be away for about a week, but came back on unfriendly terms after three days” (172,173). This is Dwight’s first and only attempt to make a relationship with Rosemary work. Rosemary has become sick of succumbing to Dwight’s whims and demands. She is sick of doing what Dwight wants her to do- Dwight had to convince her to go hunting. Rosemary and Dwight’s relationship has always been on rocks, but it was built “with rotten wood, it decayed from the start” (Crooked Teeth by Death Cab for Cutie).
That was my 2nd paragraph- here is the revised 1st- Sorry!
In This Boy’s Life, Dwight and Toby’s relationship is symbolized by shoes. Toby starts his growth spurt in seventh grade, and after he outgrows many pairs of shoes, prompts Dwight to think “I was growing out of malice [and] he put off buying [another] pair until I could hardly walk” (126). Dwight is trying to make Toby as uncomfortable as possible. This encounter demonstrates the tension between Toby and Dwight as well as the undeserved grudge that Dwight holds against Toby. This tension and grudge lead to Dwight’s refusal of Toby buying his own sneakers, even if Toby were to pay for them himself. This would then move the situation out of his control, and Dwight doesn’t just want everything to be in his control, he needs everything to be in his control. Dwight spites Toby because, in his eyes, Toby has led a care-free life, whereas he has led a life full of hardship. Dwight is even more spiteful by purchasing Toby shoes that were “heavy and squarish, chosen … to go with by my school clothes and my Scout uniform,” (128). The shoes draw the line between what Toby wants to do and what Dwight wants him to do. Toby plays basketball, which Dwight did not choose- Dwight chose Boy Scouts and school. The shoes make it harder for Toby to play, and therefore put Dwight in a more powerful, malevolent, position, intensifying how loath Toby and Dwight are of each other. While Toby and Dwight’s relationship deteriorates, so do Toby’s shoes.
Toby’s desire to be cool is driven by the faults he finds in himself. Reading memory after memory the struggle Toby goes through as he tries to find his identity becomes apparent. These imperfections he finds in himself is what drives him to attempt being ‘cool’ which causes him to do something he may know is wrong: “The first egg hit the street beside him”(46). Toby throws this egg to appear ‘cool’, but this longing to be cool, in this particular situation is more driven by jealousy; jealousy of the ‘cool’ man with his car, his look, “he was everything we were not” (46). Toby again takes another, more extreme take at being ‘cool’:“With the tail of the comb I scratched Fuck You into the soft paint and once more told Silver, “Fuck You””(77). In writing obscene words on the bathroom wall Toby thinks he is being cool even though it is undeniable that if he were to be caught in this act, the consequences would be severe. Toby has imperfections and through the book we learn alongside him, about his faults in himself and his life. Toby acts upon finding each detail about himself, positive or negative; almost as if each new detail about himself held an act as a consequence of discovery. When he saw the cool man in his cool car he instantly was jealous not only recognizing his uncoolness he also discovers that he has the ability to become extremely jealous; acting upon this he eggs the poor mans beautiful Thunderbird, along with his delinquent friends who act the same way for the some of the same reasons. Toby tries to be cool from then on, vandalizing, stealing, doing whatever he can for attention -- which is what cool people get. This attention is something that a lot of people seek, but we see it in Toby especially as he goes through each bad new deed (which most he copied from Sister James in the beginning of the book.) The friends Toby hangs around influences how he acts, we don’t see him trying to be cool around his mother; Toby may just be trying to get attention from his friends. Rosemary must learn to control her own life before she tries to control Toby’s life. Toby needs something constant that he can always rely on. We pick up the autobiography immediately we are running away, from a bad relationship between Rosemary and a bad man: “… we were driving from Florida to Utah, to get away from a man my mother was afraid of…”(4.) If Rosemary’s life were in control she could help Toby with his instead of having him step in: “I rocked her and murmured to her. I was practiced at this…”(55). Rosemary is having troubles with her life, she choses the wrong men to like the one she was running away from and Gil the man she just went out with before finding Dwight who has major problems of his own (alcoholism). These men are all different sorts of father figures and Toby needs one solid one, a father figure who he wishes for: “I could give him sterling qualities…”(121) Toby wants a solid father figure to look up to instead of all these random men who have one thing in common: they take advantage of Toby’s mother. Toby throughout the book looks to friends and Rosemary’s father figures to find his identity as well. He is so interested in brotherhood and we see this as he goes through the stages of being a boy scout “I liked being a scout” (102). Rosemary seeks attention from men because she was never allowed to be around men when she was younger, and the education you get about choosing the right men to be with was never given to her. This makes her chose men like Roy, and Gil and who knows how many other men like them that have been in her life, one was so bad she crossed the Continental Divide to get away from him.
11 comments:
Eliza
1st Paragraph:
Toby’s desperate need for love and attention drives his misbehavior but he is able to understand where he, personally is lacking. He shows his need inadvertently by intentional disobedience. “I knew he wouldn’t let this drop that he would keep at it until he caught me. I got scared” (77). Toby is frightened by the possibility of discipline, he is realizing how much he has missed out on real, pure childhood. Every childhood has bumps in the road, but nothing like the hills in Toby’s. Rosemary’s lack of attention to Toby blinds her to who the latter really is. Rosemary wants the best for her son, but sometimes she only see’s not him, but what she wishes him to be. When he clearly is the responsible party for the one curse word in the bathroom, she counters this with the might of a defensive parent. “He doesn’t lie to me,” my mother said. The principle was fidgeting. He seemed obviously ready to bolt. ‘Well,’ he said ‘there is obviously some kind of confusion here’ (82) Confusion is dead point on; Rosemary is forced into the parent shoes and is shocked by the chance that her boy, who does NOT lie, could or would do this. Toby internally justifies his lying, because his mother, the prominent figure in his life, believes him. His lack of self definition forces him to stand in her shadow and her shoes and believe it himself. Toby’s own mother cannot hear his continuous, hopeless cry out for a real mother who sees him as the boy he really is.
2nd Paragraph:
Deep inside Toby is not a bad kid, he was born into an uncontrollable situation in which he was dealt nasty cards. This does not mean that he cannot turn it around and be great, he just hasn’t found the right outlet yet. He is scared to misbehave and tries desperately to pull the justification he needs from Taylor and Silver. “The silence made me uncomfortable and in my discomfort I grinner at Silver, but Silver did not grin back” (47). Toby see’s no positive force in his life. The only positive repercussions he sees are from those Silver and Taylor exude when a behavioral sin is preformed. The Terry’s harden criminal-ship starts to take a lasting effect of Toby. It first starts with petty crimes, like egging and escalates further, to window breaking. “…the interest of the police in what we’d done elated us. We became important cocksure, insane in our arrogance” (61). The unintentional encouragement of the police furthers their actions. A stop needs to come to this behavior. A stop should come in the forms of boundaries from Rosemary to finally get Toby back on the road and steer him in the right direction.
Tobias Wolff uses cars to symbolize freedom in Toby’s life. Toby is in the car for most of his life traveling away from his mom’s problems, but he doesn’t have the freedom to get into a car and go where he wants to go. Because of Toby’s lack of freedom from his mother, Dwight, and the town of Chinook; Toby craves freedom more than ever. After Skippers car is destroyed by the sand storm, sitting inside, Toby almost believes he is moving. “If I didn’t look too hard I could almost believe I was moving”(125). Believing that he is moving shows how much Toby wants more freedom. Once high school starts, Toby can’t wait anymore; he sneaks out of the house at night and teaches himself to drive. He ‘steals’ the freedom he has been deprived of all his life. “I took the car to a stretch of road halfway to Marblemount where I could get it up to a hundred miles an hour…Someday, I thought, I would just keep going”(174). He wants to keep going – away from his problems, away to a new life with more opportunities and freedom. What Toby doesn’t realize is that with freedom comes responsibility.
Toby lies by portrays himself as a well of boy living a perfect life to girls that he writes letters to, he also remodels cars in his mind as a way to express how much he wants to transform his life. Every afternoon when he walks his paper route in Chinook, Toby remodels the cars that he passes in his mind, manipulating their original composure into new styles of expensive models. He adds on all of the bells and whistles that he wishes the cars would have, or symbolically, he wishes his life could have. “Thunderbirds had been out for only a year now…One look was enough to see that he had everything we were not”(45-46). In essence, Toby is trying to do the same thing to his life. He wants to remodel it, and make it in to something he isn’t. Another way Toby tries to transform himself is by lying. When he writes to his pen pal Alice, he tells her he lives on a ranch. “I represented myself to her as the owner of a palomino horse…on my father’s ranch the Lazy B”(13). He wants her to imagine him differently that he really is, and in doing this he hopes that it will change the way his life really is. Toby also writes letters to Annette from the Mickey Mouse Club and tells her that he is an accomplished fisherman. “Cap’n Wolff, now owned a fleet of fishing boats. I was first mate, myself, and a pretty fair hand at reeling in the big ones”(44). By lying to Annette and Alice, he feels better about himself and while writing the letters he can believe that they are true. He gets sucked into the fantasy of his life, and what his life could be.
The second paragraph starts "Toby lies by portraying himself..."
It should also be portraying not portrays. Sorry for the error.
Maddy Keefe
Body Paragraph
Toby continuously lies about who he is because his mother encourages him to lie. Toby lies frequently and acknowledges that it is wrong, but is unable to change because he never learned how to tell the truth. “The first thing I wanted to do was change my name”(8). Rosemary lets Toby do whatever he wants, even change his name, but by doing this she is encouraging him to keep lying about himself. He frequently tries on different personalities. This pushes him farther and farther away from his true self. He becomes unable to differentiate between the truth and his lies. Rosemary is also unable to tell if he is lying or not. ‘“If he says he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it,’ my mother said. ‘He doesn’t lie’” (79). Because Rosemary believes Toby’s lies, she ends up encouraging him to lie. She also encourages him when she tells lies. She never taught him to tell the truth. With only bad examples from Rosemary, Toby isn’t able to be truthful about himself.
Toby’s friend Arthur encourages him to lie. They always tell each other stories, but it turns into a competition and both of them try to have to most interesting story. “But we did not feel as if anything we said was a lie. We both believed that the real lie was told by our present unworthy circumstances” (158). Because they tell so many stories, they end up believing their lies. They think they are living in a fantasy. Once they are brought back to reality, they don’t want to believe it. Toby likes his fantasy he creates with Arthur, but does not like being seen with him. “His uniform was baggy and unadorned, his manner supercilious. He stood at the edges of the events and made sarcastic remarks. He didn’t look like a serious Scout, I did” (160). Because Toby wants people to like him, he lies about Arthur. Instead of making a real connection with him, Toby pretends to be his friend and then lies about it. Even though Arthur is not telling Toby to lie, Toby’s insecurity about having a friend makes him lie. Toby and Arthur don’t have a strong bond together which allows Toby to lie.
The opposition to Dwight’s personality and actions induce a positive scar on Toby. Living with Dwight made Toby realize that he doesn’t want to be like him when he grows up. Thus, teaching him a lot of things to “All of Dwight’s complaints against me had the aim of giving me a definition of myself. They succeeded, but not in the way he wished. I defined my self by the opposition to him” (134). For all of Toby’s life, he’s been a lost boy, and moving in with Dwight has pushed him to find himself. Although Dwight is threatening, dangerous and doesn’t treat Toby with respect, he is a powerful influence to Toby because he is showing him what not to be like. Dwight’s demanding personality makes Toby want to change. “You’re in for a change, mister. You got that? You’re in for a whole nother ball game.” ( 91). Change and transformation has been Toby and Rosemary’s goal throughout the whole book and Dwight’s personality is what will contribute to this change. The “Whole New Deal” doesn’t stand for Toby moving in with Dwight, it represents that Toby is changing.
In particular, Dwight’s apathy towards Toby leads Toby to gain intellectual thoughts and be a more independent person. “Once it got boring, I went for walks along the road just far enough so I could see the Tavern (134).” During those long walks, Toby’s mind probably reached places you could never imagine. His loneliness caused his mind to open up and capture new thoughts, ideas and experiments. Throughout the whole book, we talk about Toby being a lonely, lost boy. Though he is, all of his free time and less stress has caused him to become more mature, deep and intellectual in thought. “Now that I had grounds for guilt, I could no longer feel it (Now that I had grounds for guilt, I could no longer feel it (134).” What may lead Toby to success, is watching Dwight and Rosemary’s poor choices. While they’re making those choices, Toby is watching and taking notes in his head. Toby knows that he has gotten stronger since they moved from Florida, and that he is getting closer and closer to crossing the continental divide.
~Conor McFarland
Andrew Waterhouse
Toby commits his shenanigans because of his anger at the people who hurt him and his mother and how he hasn’t a proper father figure. Dwight hurts Toby and is mean to his mother and this triggers him to want to disobey, “I was ready to do anything to get clear of Dwight. I even thought of killing him, shooting him down some night while he was picking on my mother,” (133). Almost immediately after Rosemary meets Dwight, Toby vandalizes a school bathroom and gets in massive amounts of trouble for it, “’He doesn’t lie to me’ my mother said. The principal was fidgeting. He seemed about ready to bolt,” (82).Toby‘s shenanigans make Rosemary attracted to bad men and the bad men are driving force behind Toby’s mischief. If Rosemary looked for quality in her relationships instead of finding easy relationships quickly, Toby would behave better and Rosemary would have a better life.
Rosemary loves Toby to the extent of where all of her actions are attempting to benefit him, including her relationships with men to find make Toby happy and to find him a father figure to behave. After an awful date Rosemary went on with Gil, Toby sees his mother’s pain when she comes home late, “She was crying softly. ‘Mom?’ I said… She looked at me, tried to say something, shook her head,” (55). Rosemary marries Dwight, a sadist who abuses Toby (verbally and physically) and tries to do the same to Rosemary, because she acknowledges her incapability of disciplining Toby and discovers he needs discipline in his life, “She’d never been able to spank me. The few times she tried I came away laughing,” (60). Rosemary knows that Toby needs discipline, so she uses Dwight, someone she doesn’t love, to help Toby, someone she does. Even though sometimes it appears that Rosemary’s actions are making things worse for Toby, She’s always thinking for him and puts her love life out of the picture for him.
Ben Clapp
1st Paragraph:
The chapter title “Uncool” is describing Dwight just as much as Toby and his constant behavior show how uncool he is. He doesn’t know how best to behave in front of Toby’s mother, probably because he hasn’t had social contact in a while, making him awkward around others. He’s uncool in this case because he makes such a huge effort to court Toby’s mother, even though he might not need to. “He knew…that even being in her presence was a piece of luck that depended on his displaying at every moment deference, bounce, optimism, and all manner of good cheer” (63). Therefore Dwight knows that Rosemary probably doesn’t love him, but he tries anyway, and that is one feature that makes him uncool. Dwight is also a sore loser. He’s uncool because he can’t deal with the fact of his own failures, especially when Rosemary wins the rifle competitions. “Dwight pulled away fast and drove straight back to the house, where he clomped down the hall to his room and closed the door behind him” (74). These quotes show that Dwight doesn’t have good people skills, which makes uncool. Both of these quotes are also clear foreshadowing of Dwight’s future behavior, such as when Dwight sells Toby’s rifle to pay for the dog, Champion. Since Dwight lost the competition using Toby’s rifle, he sold it out of poor sportsmanship. As such he becomes uncool in the future, both in the reader’s eyes and the other character’s eyes.
2nd Paragraph:
Dwight is the source of decay is the family, and all the family’s problems come from him. Toby hates him so much that he thinks about, even plans on running away. “My idea was to steal enough to run away. I was ready to do anything to get clear of Dwight” (133). Toby’s life is made miserable by Dwight, and he’s so desperate to be rid of Dwight that he’ll even leave his mother. He also hates Dwight so much that he’s even ready to kill Dwight. “Sometimes I took the Winchester down when I heard him start on my mother…I wanted to shoot him just to quiet him down” (133). Dwight makes Toby miserable, causing a large problem in the family. Norma’s life is also ruined by Dwight. She marries Kenneth, who she hates, just to get away from Chinook, or more specifically, Dwight. “Norma called up and said she’d decided to marry Kenneth. She refused to explain her decision, but…we could all see that Norma didn’t love Kenneth. …she (Norma) was pale and angular, all her lazy lushness gone. Her green eyes blazed in the starkness of her face. She had taking up smoking-out on the little patio where Kenneth wouldn’t smell it when he got home” (147, 151, & 152). Even though Norma doesn’t love Kenneth and her becomes miserable with him; she still thinks that it would be better than living near Dwight. Toby and Norma’s unhappiness stems from Dwight, who’s cruel and violent character makes the whole family unhappy.
In This Boy’s Life, Dwight and Rosemary’s relationship is represented by guns and excuses. When Rosemary and Toby go to Dwight’s for Thanksgiving, they enter a shooting competition. Dwight is dismayed when Rosemary wins and he feels slighted that he lost horribly. Dwight continually feels slighted by everything and anything when it doesn’t go his way. For instance, Dwight is so loath to lose, that he makes up excuses as to why he has lost. When he loses the gun competition, he tells Toby that his gun is, “‘a menace. You should get rid of it. It shoots wild… The bore is probably rusted out’” (72). These excuses are lame and don’t hold any claim to reality. Rosemary keeps trying to make the relationship with Dwight work and her reasons change as quickly as Dwight’s guns. In a seemingly last attempt to make their marriage work, Dwight and Rosemary go on a hunting trip. “Dwight talked my mother into going along. They were supposed to be away for about a week, but came back on unfriendly terms after three days” (172,173). This is Dwight’s first and only attempt to make a relationship with Rosemary work. Rosemary has become sick of succumbing to Dwight’s whims and demands. She is sick of doing what Dwight wants her to do- Dwight had to convince her to go hunting. Rosemary and Dwight’s relationship has always been on rocks, but it was built “with rotten wood, it decayed from the start” (Crooked Teeth by Death Cab for Cutie).
That was my 2nd paragraph- here is the revised 1st- Sorry!
In This Boy’s Life, Dwight and Toby’s relationship is symbolized by shoes. Toby starts his growth spurt in seventh grade, and after he outgrows many pairs of shoes, prompts Dwight to think “I was growing out of malice [and] he put off buying [another] pair until I could hardly walk” (126). Dwight is trying to make Toby as uncomfortable as possible. This encounter demonstrates the tension between Toby and Dwight as well as the undeserved grudge that Dwight holds against Toby. This tension and grudge lead to Dwight’s refusal of Toby buying his own sneakers, even if Toby were to pay for them himself. This would then move the situation out of his control, and Dwight doesn’t just want everything to be in his control, he needs everything to be in his control. Dwight spites Toby because, in his eyes, Toby has led a care-free life, whereas he has led a life full of hardship. Dwight is even more spiteful by purchasing Toby shoes that were “heavy and squarish, chosen … to go with by my school clothes and my Scout uniform,” (128). The shoes draw the line between what Toby wants to do and what Dwight wants him to do. Toby plays basketball, which Dwight did not choose- Dwight chose Boy Scouts and school. The shoes make it harder for Toby to play, and therefore put Dwight in a more powerful, malevolent, position, intensifying how loath Toby and Dwight are of each other. While Toby and Dwight’s relationship deteriorates, so do Toby’s shoes.
Toby’s desire to be cool is driven by the faults he finds in himself. Reading memory after memory the struggle Toby goes through as he tries to find his identity becomes apparent. These imperfections he finds in himself is what drives him to attempt being ‘cool’ which causes him to do something he may know is wrong: “The first egg hit the street beside him”(46). Toby throws this egg to appear ‘cool’, but this longing to be cool, in this particular situation is more driven by jealousy; jealousy of the ‘cool’ man with his car, his look, “he was everything we were not” (46). Toby again takes another, more extreme take at being ‘cool’:“With the tail of the comb I scratched Fuck You into the soft paint and once more told Silver, “Fuck You””(77). In writing obscene words on the bathroom wall Toby thinks he is being cool even though it is undeniable that if he were to be caught in this act, the consequences would be severe. Toby has imperfections and through the book we learn alongside him, about his faults in himself and his life. Toby acts upon finding each detail about himself, positive or negative; almost as if each new detail about himself held an act as a consequence of discovery. When he saw the cool man in his cool car he instantly was jealous not only recognizing his uncoolness he also discovers that he has the ability to become extremely jealous; acting upon this he eggs the poor mans beautiful Thunderbird, along with his delinquent friends who act the same way for the some of the same reasons. Toby tries to be cool from then on, vandalizing, stealing, doing whatever he can for attention -- which is what cool people get. This attention is something that a lot of people seek, but we see it in Toby especially as he goes through each bad new deed (which most he copied from Sister James in the beginning of the book.) The friends Toby hangs around influences how he acts, we don’t see him trying to be cool around his mother; Toby may just be trying to get attention from his friends.
Rosemary must learn to control her own life before she tries to control Toby’s life. Toby needs something constant that he can always rely on. We pick up the autobiography immediately we are running away, from a bad relationship between Rosemary and a bad man: “… we were driving from Florida to Utah, to get away from a man my mother was afraid of…”(4.) If Rosemary’s life were in control she could help Toby with his instead of having him step in: “I rocked her and murmured to her. I was practiced at this…”(55). Rosemary is having troubles with her life, she choses the wrong men to like the one she was running away from and Gil the man she just went out with before finding Dwight who has major problems of his own (alcoholism). These men are all different sorts of father figures and Toby needs one solid one, a father figure who he wishes for: “I could give him sterling qualities…”(121) Toby wants a solid father figure to look up to instead of all these random men who have one thing in common: they take advantage of Toby’s mother. Toby throughout the book looks to friends and Rosemary’s father figures to find his identity as well. He is so interested in brotherhood and we see this as he goes through the stages of being a boy scout “I liked being a scout” (102). Rosemary seeks attention from men because she was never allowed to be around men when she was younger, and the education you get about choosing the right men to be with was never given to her. This makes her chose men like Roy, and Gil and who knows how many other men like them that have been in her life, one was so bad she crossed the Continental Divide to get away from him.
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